


The Bitter, Sweet Love

by Arkee



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Angst, Everyone loves Mrs Hudson, Fluffy, I don't know if I should consider said character as minor, John being somehow ironic, M/M, Minor Character Death, More angst, Post-Reichenbach, did I ever mention angst?, it'll probably make you done, true angst isn't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arkee/pseuds/Arkee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes comes back home after three years away to find John utterly angry with him. But perhaps, he can change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bitter, Sweet Love

**Author's Note:**

> Valentine's Day was drawing near, so I thought "Why not?"
> 
> I tried my best to keep Sherlock in his character, yet that I fear that I could've made him go a bit off character. I'll need to work on that on my next fanfics, it seems. Excuse me if it has any grammar errors or if it could have a better brit-picking.
> 
> By the way, enjoy and Happy Valentine's Day.  
> :)

It takes three awful years for it to happen, but when it does, it’s not the sweetest reunion ever. It’s not made of _I missed you so much, I believed you to be dead this whole time, please never leave me again_ and _I didn’t want to do this, I’d rather stay with you than have to go through three years hunting Moriarty’s men_. Maybe it would be like that, had Sherlock came back a week after that incident and dragged John with him to chase after Jim’s men.  He could’ve found a way to do so, making Watson try a fake suicide to cover his disappearance. But again, the young Holmes would put himself and his friend in a risky situation. Someone could use John for their own benefit, maybe even worse than the pool incident. Their friendship was a weak spot when dealing with criminals, especially if said criminal got one of them to blackmail the other.

John went through those three years suffering, at first, because of his supposed loss. He felt depressive, while tried to fight his sorrow and keep his military posture. He had lost people before, yes. Especially in the army. But this one loss seemed different from any other, for some reason. Probably because of the thought that once you start living with someone and once that the years flow and both of you enjoy each other’s company, they become a part of you, sort of.

And Watson barely goes out anymore after the fall, for a long while. He doesn’t hang out with friends for a pint or two and does the shopping with a serious expression. He rarely smiles, but whenever he does, it’s sad. He goes to work with a hard expression and it’s always like this. He doesn’t date anyone, because he thinks that nobody would put with his sadness.

Until, one day, Mary Morstan appears.

She’s a gentle, calm woman with long blonde locks and emerald green eyes. They meet at the hospital, as she’s taking the place of one doctor that left to give birth, a week before. After a while they start bumping into one another with a reasonable frequency. He feels that there’s something about her that is just right. And so it evolves to a relationship.

Mary asks John to move into her flat after the first three months. And they live together for a year, before she starts to slowly get sick. She has headaches, often. Mary also loses her balance at random times when she’s standing. She doesn’t want to worry John, because she knows how once he worried about his best friend and how it did so bad to him when this man that she never met died right before her boyfriend’s eyes.

She cries when he’s nowhere to be seen, because she knows that there’s something wrong with her. Medical instinct tells her that it’s going to get worse with the time. But, contrary to her belief, John notices that she’s not doing well, so she ends up telling him about the headaches.

Mary gets examined. Brain aneurism, inoperable. She cries on their way back home, silently, looking outside of the cab’s window. It’s happening what she never wanted to occur. She’s going to hurt John. Because she knows how much he loves her. John holds a serious expression and doesn’t talk to her during their ride home. He only breaks down when the night comes by. He buries his head on her shoulder blades and cries. He tells her that he doesn’t want her to go. They both cry until they sleep.

Mary passes away a month after that. Which happens to be, also, almost two years since Sherlock’s death.

The time that flows after that is painful as now, John had lose the two people that he cared about the most. He wonders, at times, if Mary met Sherlock on the afterlife, as she always said that she would have liked to meet him when he was alive, despite Watson’s comments on how his former flatmate used to keep body parts on the fridge and play the violin at three in the morning. He laughs a broken chuckle on how Sherlock would, most likely, find her to be boring as the rest of the normal people.

And that’s the reason why, as stated before, the reunion, when it happens, is not sweet.

After Mary’s death, John moved back into the old 221B flat on Baker Street. Mrs Hudson had not let anyone else rent it, stating that “You and Sherlock – especially Sherlock – were the strangest people to rent the flat, but I always loved both of you as my sons”. And surprisingly to John, the flat was exactly as when he left it, as like someone was living there during all the time he was away. When John asked her how she could keep it like that if there were no money coming from the rent payment, she answered that Mycroft was paying his brother’s half, mostly as an apology for the entire problem that the young Holmes caused when he was in the flat.

Exactly one day after he moved back, John hears the doorbell. As Mrs Hudson is out doing some shopping with Mrs Turner, he moves to see who is on the door. His heart skips a beat as the door is open.

And there he is. Sherlock Holmes, with his curly locks messed up, faint bags under his eyes, wearing a coat that wasn’t long, but that still had that ridiculous collar that he would insist to leave turned up, with a faint green scarf around his long neck, pathetically searching somewhere else to look that weren’t John’s eyes.

“Hello… John.” He starts.

“You aren’t supposed to be here. For God’s sake, you’re dead.” John answers, harshly.

“Well, I don’t seem to be dead now, do I?”

John wonders for a moment whatever he should just close the door or punch the man before doing so.

“Here” Sherlock gets a hold of his left wrist, then drops it “I’m not dead. It’s not a dream, John. I came back. It’s okay now.”

At that, John finally loses it.

“No, it’s not okay!” He shouts. “You don’t know… you don’t know what is to deal with believing your best friend to be dead for three bloody years. You don’t know how bad it is, you don’t…”

“John… I had to. It was this or getting you kil-“

“I don’t care why you had to do that, just go away. Don’t come back. Never talk to me again.”

“John… I-“

The army doctor punches him hard in the face. Instinctively, as in the old times, he still avoids teeth and nose. But differently from the old times, this punch is strong. It knocks Sherlock backwards and he falls – irony intended – to the ground. John closes the door. He’s crying, back sliding across the cool material of the door until he’s sitting on the ground, a mess of sobbing and tears.

He’s still crying when Mrs Hudson comes back.

“Oh my dear, what happened?” She says as she tries to open the door and John has to move to let her in.

“He’s alive, Mrs Hudson. He’s bloody alive.” He manages, through sobs.

“Who?”

“Sherlock.”

“And how can he be? He just jumped from that bloody rooftop.”

“I don’t know, but he is. He came here. It’s real, he touched my wrist. I just… I… I punched him and closed the door.”

“Oh dear. If it was really him you must’ve had given him a chance to exp-“

“Explain what? That he left me behind to suffer while he was around?”

“John, he’s Sherlock. There must be a reason-“

“I don’t want to know, I just want him to disappear!” He shouted. Mrs Hudson let out a gasp. “I’m sorry, Mrs H.”

“It’s okay, dear.” She pets him on the shoulder. “Listen. You must need to take some time to calm down and then let him speak in his defence. Only then you’ll be able to consider if you’re right in closing the door on his face or if you should apologise for doing so. “

“But Mrs Hudson… I am angry with him. I also can’t trust him anymore. Not after he did that.”

“I know, but listen to the man if he comes back. It’s fairer this way.”

“Alright, I’ll consider it.”

She gives him a sad smile as she leaves for her own flat.

John climbs the stairs slowly. He wasn’t expecting for that to happen. He’s angry, of course, but also confused. Why would Sherlock do that to him? Clearly, the man wasn’t the most considerably of the friends when it came to the other people’s feelings, but really? Faking his death for three years? John couldn’t take that easily.

 

* * *

 

On the evening of that same day, John looks outside from the couch as a random commercial starts on the telly. It’s raining. Typical London weather, he thinks and sighs thoughtfully. He’s still wondering if what happened earlier were just a dream and that maybe he could yet be dreaming as well, ready to wake up at any minute to the life he got used to, without Sherlock nor Mary around him.

Hours later, it’s still raining as John is going to put the kettle on and Mrs Hudson excuses herself inside the flat with two knocks on the door, her face being pure concern as Watson turns to face her.

“Oh, hello, Mrs H. What happened? You look worried.”

“He’s on the front door, dear. He said that he won’t go away if you don’t go and let him in.”

John feels like he’s about to swear, but he keeps his composure because he doesn’t want to lack with respect towards the lovely old lady. Instead, he lets out a heavy sigh.

“Alright, fine. But I’m just doing this because I’m sure that it’s going to rain the whole night and I don’t want him to die of hypothermia on our door.”

Mrs Hudson lets out a relieved sigh and excuses herself to her flat.

When John opens the front door, there’s the man once again, this time, completely soaked, shaking visibly and almost curling up on himself, sitting on the doorstep, trying – although in vain – to keep his body warm.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” John states, driving Sherlock’s attention to him “Just come inside at once.”

Sherlock stands and gets inside, quietly, pretty much as a dog which just did something wrong. John has to help him upstairs, since the man keeps shaking. Still, the dark haired man doesn’t say such a word.

“Sit on one of the kitchen’s chairs, I’ll get a towel.” John explains, once they’re inside the flat, pointing at the kitchen.

Sherlock doesn’t look at him, just keeps shaking silently on his chair. He ignores the towel when Watson comes back with it, a thoughtful expression on his face. John wants to just leave the man by himself and go to sleep, but he gives up and starts rubbing the towel on the man’s dark wet curls. He rants while he does so, still angry.

“You can’t just play dead and come back. It’s unfair. It’s telling me that I shouldn’t have cried by thinking that I lost you. I’m angry. I should have left you outside, since I thought that you were already dead, it would make no difference if-“

But then, Sherlock gets a hold of his forearm.

“You say so, considering that I wouldn’t suffer if one of Moriarty’s snipers had actually killed you. You don’t have any idea about what is really unfair, John. I already knew that I’d not be received with kindness, but to hear from your mouth that it would make no difference if I was indeed dead wasn’t something that I would expect from you at all.”

He stands abruptly and leaves for his former bedroom, wrapping the towel around his shoulders, still shaking a little. John sighs. Maybe he was too harshly at his ranting. He hesitantly raises a hand to knock at Sherlock’s door, but gives up and goes upstairs to get himself some sleep.

When he wakes up, however, Sherlock isn’t on the flat anymore. It could have been a dream indeed, if there weren’t the partially wet clothes on the floor of the man’s former bedroom.

 

* * *

 

Two whole weeks pass without any notice from Sherlock. Maybe he gave up, after all and left for good.

John, however, starts regretting the way he treated the detective that day. Maybe he should’ve let him explain his reasons, as Mrs Hudson suggested. But it was too late by now to try that.

He would get over that, as he did when he believed the man to be dead.

John wasn’t expecting to see him again, when Mrs Hudson came upstairs, one evening. Ironically enough, it was raining again.

“John, you have a vis-“ She starts, but she’s cut by Sherlock, who steps past her inside the flat, dripping wet.

And once again, she leaves for her flat, calmly but fast.

Both men stand there, exchanging a look for a silently minute. Nobody wants to talk first or even better, none of them knows what to say.

“Sherlock… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that that day, the heat got to me, I think.”

“No, it’s alright.” He answers looking away. “By the way, do you have a towel?”

“Uh, wait just there, I’ll get one.”

John comes back to a Sherlock sitting on one of the kitchen’s chairs, looking thoughtful at the floor. It takes some seconds for him to realise what’s going on and he really doesn’t know why he’s doing that once more.

They stay like this, Watson running the towel through the dark, damp curls, quietly, for a while.  The only thing that is said comes off from John’s mouth as a whispered “I think that you coming here all soaked like this is getting a bit ridiculousAnd once more Sherlock stops him by getting a grip of his forearm. His hands are cold, but firm and steady this time.

Although, instead of speaking, he remains silent.

“Sherlock?” John asks, looking down at the man, intrigued.

Sherlock, though, just looks up at him and pulls him down for a kiss. It’s unexpected and caught John off guard, his eyes widening in surprise. The kiss is quick, however, as Sherlock – for once in a long while – was uncertain if he should be doing so. John just looks at him, confused, as if wanting to ask what was that for. And he was indeed going to ask, but when he tried to open his mouth to do so, the detective raises a finger to his lips, making him go silent with almost no effort.

“I know what you’re going to ask. Don’t. I just… oddly have been wanting to do this for a while now. I don’t know what got to me to want it. It’s not very logic, you see.”

“You know, it’s very ironic from you, who called love as a ‘chemical weakness’ a thousand of times. ‘John, I don’t get why you keep dating, this is such a useless thing.’” He lets out a chuckle “I think that you were jealous this whole time without even noticing. It serves you so well.”

“John, yet that I choose to divorce myself of my feelings – as much because I don’t find a practical use for such a thing – I can’t do it completely. I’m still human, after all, you’ve seen by yourself on Dartmoor how it can affect me. That’s exactly why I avoid it. Because if it affects me, it doesn’t do so in the normal way. It’s intense and when it happens, I barely have the control.” He looks away for a while minute, being nothing but quiet.

John makes Sherlock look at him once again by pressing a hand on his cheek. He brings their lips together again, softly. It’s slower this time and both of them fight for dominance. When Sherlock pulls him closer, John can’t help but let out a half gasp, which allows entrance for Sherlock’s tongue. After a while of exploration, although, they break up for air.

“Maybe you need someone to control it. Luckily for you, yes, I love you too.”

Sherlock gives him a smile. Not one of those he gives to a crime scene, but one of his truest smiles, reserved only for those moments when someone says something that he really appreciate.

“Should I move back?” He asks, not breaking eye contact.

“As you wish. But I need to say that I’m still angry, so it’s not going to be soft and easy at first. And if you leave another bloody head in the fridge, I swear that I won’t come near you for a whole week.”

“But my experiments-“ He starts, trying to use the ‘puppy eyes’ trick towards John.

“Okay, maybe something or other, but not a head.”

They stay quiet for a moment, just keeping eye contact, but soon, they break into laughter.

“I’m glad that you’re back.”

“I’m grateful that you didn’t leave me in that cold rain any longer. I believe that I’d probably freeze there and die. In the middle of February, after all.”

“Middle of Feb- … wait, what day is today?”

“Fourteen.”

John stops for a moment contemplating the irony. It’s Valentine’s Day, for God’s sake.

“John?”

“You had to do it today, didn’t you? We’ll have to get each other two presents each year. Really, Sherlock? On the Valentine’s Day?”

“Oh, shut up. You’re worth a gift, yourself.”

“Okay, who the hell are you and what did you do with the Sherlock that I know?” John says, and both of them laugh again.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, John.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day for you, too.”

The silence is established again as John returns to his task of drying Sherlock’s hair with the towel. Until, Sherlock speaks again.

“Do I need to keep saying that I love you or isn’t that a requirement?” He asks matter of factly.

“Once in a while would be rather good, yes.”

“I love you, John.”

“Yeah, me too.”


End file.
